Czech History
• 500
- 1306: The Great Moravian Empire and the Přemyslid Dynasty
• 1310 - 1378: John of Luxembourg
and Charles IV
• 1415 - 1526: The Hussite Era
and George of Poděbrady
• 1526 - 1790: The Habsburg
Dynasty to Joseph II
• 1790 - 1914: National
Revival
to World War I
• 1918 - 1945: The First Republic
and World War II
• 1945 - 1989: The Communist
Era
• 1989 - present: Velvet
Revolution and Beyond
With the fall of the Austro-Hungarian Empire
after World War I, the Czech lands and Slovakia jointly
proclaimed the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia on October
28, 1918. Prague became the capital of the country and
the Prague Castle became the seat of the first president
of Czechoslovakia, Tomáš
Garrigue Masaryk. The time between WWI and WWII is now called "the First Republic".
Czechoslovakia had a parliamentary democracy, concentrated 70% of the industry
of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, and had an economy that was among the
strongest in the world. Prague became close to Paris then, as is exemplified
by the great Czech-French art-nouveau painter Alphonse
Mucha.
In the mid-1930s, the German inhabitants
of the Czech border areas called the Sudetenland began
calling for autonomy. Masaryk resigned from his post of
president
in
1935 due
to illness
and was replaced by Edvard Beneš. In September
1938, Germany, Britain, France and Italy signed the
Munich
Pact,
giving Hitler
the right to invade and claim Czechoslovakia's
border areas, despite the fact that France had a treaty
with Czechoslovakia promising help in the event of military
aggression. O nás bez nás (about
us, without us) has become a phrase bitterly remembered
by all Czechs. On March 15, 1939, Czechoslovakia was invaded
by Hitler's army. The border territories were seized by
Germany and the rest of the country was occupied by Nazi
Germany until the end
of World
War
II
in 1945. The end of the war came with the Prague Uprising
on May 5, 1945 and the subsequent liberation of Prague
by the Soviet Red Army on May 9. The western territories of the
Czech Republic, including Plzeň, were liberated by the
American army lead by General Patton.
- Talks
With T.G. Masaryk
- The
Killing of Reinhard Heydrich: The SS 'Butcher of Prague'
- Schindler's
Legacy:
True Stories of the List Survivors
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